In conversation with Sanjeev Sethi

Our readers would like to know your inspiration (or story, if any) behind Mellowness.

It’s a poem born in a private moment, celebrating the joys of onanism and its attendant issues.

Tell us more about your creative process in general.

About a decade ago, I began the second phase of my creative life, which continues unabated. In this chapter, I have no life outside of inditing. All of me am engaged in it and its auxiliary activity. I am at my desk for almost 15 hours. If this seems drudge-like, it is not. I am in it out of choice. I luxuriate in it.

Do you have any creative influences? What do you like the most about their work? Does it have a discernible effect on your writing?

Not in a direct way, not that I am conscious of. The brain is a wok. We continue to pad it with all we peruse. I am sure the churn must be creating something meaningful. I have no favorite poets. I just read and read. A line here, an idea there, a beginning somewhere, a turn of phrase, an entire poem sometimes, many poems by another. I am not a loyalist. I am a slave of the poetic form, not of individuals who create it. 

Are there any creative genres, forms, themes, techniques etc. you wish you could employ in your writing which you haven’t yet?

No, I am absolutely in sync with my expression in poetry. It’s a form I am most comfortable with. There is just no stress; my lines flow without any struggle. No other form sits as comfortably with me. 

What are you looking forward to in your creative career?

To indite to some more, to publish a few more books until health, hell, or heaven intervene.